[Editor's note: I've never heard of demo whoring before until topgeargorilla just brought this subject up. It's hard to imagine someone not getting the full experience of BioShock with just the small taste of Rapture from the demo. In any case, here is tgg's Gaming's Guilty Pleasure as part of April's Monthly Musings. -- CTZ]
It's an interesting issue. With the PS3, the Wii, and the 360, gamers now have at their fingertips really fantastic games at the push of a button. Instead of having to schlep ourselves out and about to pick up games, we can just keep sitting on our asses and have new gameplay experiences at any time. It's great.
However, I have discovered an interesting, and slightly subversive, situation brewing. I guess you could call it demo whoring. With the 360 and the PS3, all arcade games, and many retail games, have relatively small files that allow gamers to get a taste of the gaming experience. Most people would use this as a time to test out the game, like it-or-hate-it, then make a buying decision. Like cocaine. The first time it's free, after that it's gonna cost you.
More after the jump.
Except, it doesn't work on me. Truth be told, I haven't bought a single game on my 360 that I have demoed. As a matter of fact, download wise, the only Arcade game I've ever bought is
UNO, which I never demoed. And I have bought plenty of Wii VC titles, but those were in moments of weakness. They don't count.
But taking a look at my downloaded games list on the green blade of Live, I have on average of five to 20 "games". Every single one is a demo (except for free shit like
Yaris, Aegis Wing, and
Undertow). From
BioShock to
Texas Hold 'Em, I download a lot of demos.
I have a dirty secret to tell: When I get bored with the games I have, I download three or four demos, let them load up while watching
South Park, and when finished, spend an hour and a half playing these games. Even if they are crap, even if I never had any interest in them, even if I never intend to buy them, even games like
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (shit on the 360 D-pad), I'll sit down and play. Since I got the 360 in December, I've had a ton of demos to play. I may have invested more time playing demos spread out than in some of the games I payed for. For instance,
Half-Life 2.
I'm an 'effing demo whore. Why in the world would I want to spend hard earned cash on a game I'll only play a couple times when I could just have a taste and be satisfied?
Ikaruga is a bitch, and I'll never beat the first level so the demo is as much fun as I'll ever get out of it. The
BioShock demo, showcasing a game that scares a pussy like me, lets me experience
BioShock and not have to buy it. I just played the
Iron Man demo. I got fun out of it and now I don't ever have to buy it. Ever. Maybe it's A.D.D or something, but I don't have to ever care about not playing
Iron Man. Because I already did. The same can be said with a ton of other games. Besides, a lot of games on Live are only worth a demo, and shit like
Tron is actually fun when free and in short bursts. It's like my 360 is a giant
Wario Ware console, with Mega Minigames instead.
There's a candy company in America called
See's Candies. They specialize in chocolate truffles and stuff. When you go there, you can spend a lot of money on these things, but they have a policy of giving away free chocolates when you go there. You don't even have to buy anything. Live and the PSN give me the "free chocolates" of gaming. Sure, it's all "mocha" and "caramel", and I'm missing out on "strawberry bon-bon" and "coconut", but what's free is free. It's all gaming.
Who's gone to Costco, walked around eating samples, then just left? I have. That chicken nugget was good, but I'm full now; I don't want to buy a whole bag of delicious nuggets.
So excuse me, big-huge-gaming-corporations. I could care less that my beloved
Mr. Driller is online. I already got to play it, thanks for the fun. You're gonna have to do something extra special to hook me into paying you for games. Why pay for fun when the same level of enjoyment can be gotten for free?
Contest:
2:23 PM on 04.20.2008
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But really, mentioning the demo disc, I totally had a subscription to Playstation Underground, just for those demos. And how I enjoyed that Jumpin Flash demo back on PS1 . . .
I used to be like that but I hardly ever get demos anymore, I spend too much time on gaming sites so I feel I know if I will like game more from reading about it than from a demo.
I still have the demos for Lost Planet, Skate, DMC4, Dead Rising, NBA Street Homecourt... fuck I need to buy some games.
Good topic.
lol about Shadowrun. I need to download that.
@ISOTEN
For some reason, my 360 refuses to download Dead Rising. Weird.
Ever since I've owned my original Xbox, I subscribed to Live. So used to having my hand held, and now let go. I am questioning on whether to rejoin again or not. (although I subscribed to the $7.99) Honestly I wanted to test the waters of being a Silver monkey. (*and it sucks)
Advertising while reading a message? "hey be a gold member to send or reply to a message!" Right.. download this demo by being a gold member! Um are you kidding?
Seeing the opposite side of things, I'm really questioning more. If these were open options, like PSN. This would make alot more newer owners happy.
Going to see what happens. So who knows.
i don't know if this is related, but I find myself getting lots and lots of play time of newer games by merely just hanging around friends with new systems for a lengthy amount of time. I doubt own any of the current gen systems, but i sure could hold my own in halo 3, Bioshock, or whathaveyou.
Thank god for demos - not only can you kill some time with them (even to the extent you mentioned, so you don't have to actually buy a game) but mostly you sort out the shitty games. The demo for Kane & Lynch for example saved me a good amount of money - despite getting a few good reviews that game just isn't worth a purchase.
I NEED HELP!
Then again since I'm from the PC era. There also use to be alot of free games and I'm not talk warez. Hell back when Prodigy use to be a big deal they had networks devoted to user created minigames...and no I'm not as old as I sound. I think I was 8 or something then.
Anyway this "DemoWhoring" is an old fad born new again I suppose. I remember those days of downloading wandering files on the internets in search for games I don't even remember the cmds for it anymore. Quite often they were demos. I hate to say it but I think it's a gamer maturity thing eventually when you have the money and the time you want the full quality and version.
Yeah, I also opted for Perfect Dark Zero over Call of Duty 2 at launch, and Kameo...I remember buying Kameo.
My decision making has improved since those days.
Settling just for demos is kind of lame for me. You miss out on lots of thing this way. To use a real life example let's assume that Mr. topgeargorilla ha a girlfriend but instead of sexing her, all he gets is a hand job. With the lights out. Rubber gloves on.
No, it doesn't.
I guess I care way too much about story to be a demo whore. Granted, there are some games that I play the demos over and over every once in a while instead of buying them (Ikaruga, anyone?), but I like the experience of moving through a storyline, even if it's shit.
@ Everybody about Bioshock.
Yeah, I know I'm missing out on a great game. The literal problem is I get stuck on a spooky part, and never play a game again. That's what would happen for me in Bioshock; same with Resident Evil 4, a game I appreciate, but get too spooked to play.
I don't know about other people, but I feel really out of the loop when I can't afford to purchase every game I want. It's also really disappointing when I buy a game, like it, but lose interest after an hour, even for a really good game. Demos solve that problem: I've had the experience, but never need to spend cash.
But Bioshock is really good. I REALLY need to grow a pair....
Burnout Paradise is a good example of a game where they made the demo too good. It's better than a lot of full retail games.
It's a thin line the developers must tow.
So I bought the game when I got a 360 and slapped myself in the cock. After I got the Bioshock Experience I decided it would be stupid to download any demo of any game (excluding XBLA titles) because demos can easily taint the look of the full version of the game (as it did for me with Bioshock).
So I for one refuse to play demo's now. I prefer getting a hands on experience with the full game to judge it, instead of having the demo judge the game for me
wow. just wow.
i've actually played demos that made me want to buy the game. Mr. DRILLER Online is the latest example... and i'm seriously considering buying the Iron Man game after playing the demo, once it goes down in price.